


Loss Ficlet: Handfasting

by missclairebelle



Series: Loss (Ficlets) [27]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, Mild Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 13:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14935028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missclairebelle/pseuds/missclairebelle
Summary: Jamie suggests hand fasting.  Claire has a hard time not losing her mind.





	Loss Ficlet: Handfasting

**Author's Note:**

> Potential TW: This ficlet draws on canon, specifically to the handfasting scene in the books/show. (Did you get that based on the title?!) If that scene/passage  bothers you, you should skip this. xx.

 

******Loss Ficlet (Modern AU)  
** **Handfasting  
** **May 2018**

Superstitions to which Jamie Fraser subscribed included, but were not limited to: the fortune of a field of white heather ( _a near obsession with the wedding being scheduled such that my bouquet would contain it and he could pin it to the lapel of his suit_ ), handselling –– the placing of silver in a baby’s hand ( _his quiet Gaelic whisper of welcome and love as he pressed a small coin into his newborn nephew’s pink hand_ ), the first-footer ( _dispensing of the misogynistic notion that good luck in the new year required a male, he demanded that Jenny be the first person to cross the threshold of our flat in 2018_ ), and a near visceral reaction to shoes on a table ( _a flushed face, panic, and grabbing by the ankles when I once put my feet, clad in tennis shoes, up after work_ ).

Until the moment he had asked, I had not known _this_ was one of his deeply-held superstitions ( _traditions_ ).

 _Handfasting.  A blood vow_. _A tradition._

As a physician, the idea of purposefully allowing another’s blood to enter my bloodstream made me want to scream at the top of my lungs about blood borne pathogens.

( _HIV. Hepatitis C. Hepatitis B. Utter insanity._ )

As someone affianced to a Scot who was significantly more superstitious and traditional than he would ever admit to, I had kept a straight face when he had mentioned _it_.

It was the first hard “ ** _no_** ” I had given to one of his suggestions in a very long time.  And I was firm: “James Fraser. You’re not cutting and bleeding me by the wrist.”

“Did ye hear me say I want to _cut you_ on the wrist? We can revise it… a little nick somewhere.”  

The way he said it meant that he had intended to _just_ do that, and was only revising his plans based on my objection.

Oh, he was _blushing_. I could tell that it had taken a lot for him to ask in the first place and he was a bit deflated at my response.

Wide eyed, he was smitten and doe-like in an abashed clear blue kind of way. That look was all that kept me from laughing in his face when he said ‘ _I want to swear an oath to ye… through blood_.’ And the soft shift of his posture, scratching the back of his neck, helped me fight the urge to ask if he was insane. Holding his breath with that lazy hand on his neck, he was abashed, sincere, hopeful.

His request came out in a tone as serious as the first time he told me that he loved me.

_I could maybe live with a finger prick or something… fleshy._

“Do people still do that? Can’t we just… I don’t know… tie ourselves together with a piece of cloth? I could stare into your eyes without… you know… feeding you my blood?”

“Claire,” he sighed, hand raking through his hair before he bent at the waist to hook the dog to his leash. “Forget I mentioned it.”

_Well now I felt really bad._

In a huff, he informed me with quite the snippy tone that he was “ _goin’ for a run_.”

And just like that, he was out the door.

Sitting on the couch, flipping through a medical journal that I did not bother to read, the visceral reaction faded. All that remained was the look in his eyes, the knowledge of his affinity for culture and history. The bond that he had over generations of his family stirred me –– _a clan, he said one time_.  This was important to him, a nod to a past through the solemnity of a mostly extinct ritual.

I flipped the journal shut, dropping it to the coffee table as I chewed on my thumbnail.

_For him, okay._

My boys were both worse for wear when they got home.  Jamie was sweaty and flushed, clutching a stitch in his side.  His breathing was so heavy that he looked like a marionette on a string, bent at the waist and back rising in an arch and falling.  Buffalo Bill collapsed, tongue hanging out of his mouth, near a stack of boxes that we had not yet unpacked.

Without saying anything or even looking at me, Jamie walked to the bathroom as he stripped out of his clothes.  He tossed his damp, sweat-ringed t-shirt it on my side of the bed.

_So he was being passive aggressive._

_I would not take the bait._

_But I was resolved to try like hell to right the ship._

He was about to step into the shower when I gave in, brokering a compromise.

“I would need to clean us both, and use a sterile tool. Not some rusty Highland blade that’s been trotted out for all other sorts of bloodletting.”

He turned and looked at me over his shoulder. His voice was slow and deliberate when he spoke, “Of course.  I ken that ye’d only be indulgin’ me.”

Licking my lips, I had agreed and placed a kiss on his sweat-slicked shoulder.  

“How far did you make our dog run?” I asked, resting my cheek on the winged arch of his scapula. “He looks dreadfully sad out there.”

“Not that far, Sassenach. Carried him most of the way.”

I laughed at the image, slipping my arms around his waist and resting my palms on his belly.  

_I could live with it; it was important to him._

After my next shift at the hospital, I slipped a scalpel, some antiseptic solution in a travel jar, and some clean bandages into my purse. I felt like a bandit and wondered how in the world I would explain it if the security cameras caught my thievery.  

Jamie, knowing what was coming, had lit some candles in our room and turned on some low music. ( _Bebel Gilberto – the kind of thing he typically reserved for putting moves on me._ )  

“Is this supposed to be… romantic?” I asked, changing into pajamas.

Jamie’s eyes fixed on me and he let out a small, snuffling sound of appreciation as I slipped out of my bra.

“Pick a lane, Jamie. Sex or blood. You’re not getting both.” ****

“Did I mention that we are to do this naked?” He raised a single auburn eyebrow and licked his lips.

I rolled my eyes and pulled a slinky jersey tank top over my head. “This is not the most… arousing… situation, Jamie.”

“Ye dinna think this is romantic?”

This time, _I_ snorted. “Not particularly.”

“Weel, then no. It’s no’ supposed to be romantic. Think of it as a surgery –– yer patient is a delirious, love-mad fool.”

“So, treat it like exactly what it is?”

Smirking, he said, “Ha. Ha. _Fucking ha_.”

We settled cross-legged on the bed with our knees touching.  Jamie proved to be a compliant patient –– allowing me to scrub clean the fleshy rise a few inches up his forearm again and again. He watched me clean my own forearm, his thumb traveling over the curve of my shinbone.

Something about his nearness and touch was comforting.

“Go first, _sorcha_.” He held out his arm.  “Ye’ll see it’s no’ a big deal.”

I gave him a withering look, and sucked in a breath.

For the first time in my life, my hand was unsure holding a scalpel –– shaking in a way that was probably imperceptible to him. To me, it felt a lot like my body was betraying me.

I held the blade over his forearm.  

I knew I would not have to go deep and that the wound would heal quickly, cleanly.  

But I could not focus on making the cut.

He was breathing evenly, his forearm an offering between us.  His lips were curled into a slight, encouraging smile and his eyes were warm, wrinkled slightly at the edges.  

“Ye’ll no’ hurt me, Claire.”

“I – I… I _know_.”  

_Oh God. We were going to do this._

I resisted the urge to kiss the freshly-sterilized square of his flesh and felt my eyes flutter shut as the blade met his skin. With a slight press, I opened my eyes.  I lifted the scalpel and stared for a moment. A bulbous bloom of his blood rose from the cut that was no more than a few centimeters wide.

I looked up and his eyes were trained on me and he had the lopsided smile of contentment curving his lips. He pressed a small piece of gauze over the wound.

 _It was my turn. H_ e hesitated until I nodded my assent one final time.

“I dinna want to make ye do this if ye dinna want to. Ye’re comfortable wi’ this?”

“ _Yes_ ,” I said truthfully, licking my lips. Jamie’s eyes left mine and focused on my forearm, the small area where I had indicated for him to make the shallow cut.

I watched as he lowered the blade. “You don’t have to push or slice, just… lightly. It’s incredibly sharp.”

I barely felt the almost imperceptible nick of the blade. I was somehow disembodied from the moment until Jamie pressed his forearm to mine, the warm smears of our blood merging. After a breath, it felt like our pulses were beating together. His fingers wrapped around my upper arm.

It was an awkward sort of oneness, his longer forearm not fitting perfectly with mine.

But I suddenly realized why this had been important to him.

“Claire?” he asked, a little breathless.

“Mmmm?” I intoned, eyes not straying from where his fingers were stroking over the crease of my elbow. I wanted him to just let the sensation of the experience live. I was not sure I could take the crush of feelings from the intimate bond established with each heartbeat and his words.

Jamie’s fingers splayed almost around the circumference of my arm and I watched as he put the scalpel on the nightstand.  He lifted the piece of clean white cloth and carefully wrapped it around our joined arms.  I felt light headed, but not from the negligible amount of blood I had lost. The pair of us had suffered far worse cuts slicing vegetables for dinner.  

He murmured, moments of Gaelic. It felt like history that had passed hundreds of years earlier was swelling and spilling into 2018.

_Tradition. Sacrifice. Strength. Love._

The idea that I was in him, he was in me, was intoxicating.

“What does it mean?” I asked eventually, knowing that by now the blood had likely finished its slow leak from the small perforations in our skin.

“Ye are blood of my blood, and bone of my bone.”

His free hand skated over the length of our joined arms.

“I give ye my body, that we two might be one. I give ye my spirit, ‘til our life shall be done.”

“Jamie, I… don’t know that I have the words to…”

Shaking his head, he tucked the end of the white cloth into the wrappings and just looked at me.  “Ye dinna need to say anythin’, Sassenach. Just doin’ this… weel… that’s all I needed out of this.”

The gentle _thrump, thrump_ of the pulse in his soft, dry lips matched our unified pulse.

“And above all else, ken that I canna wait to give ye my name in a week.”


End file.
